This article was originally published on the Courier Record website.
WE SAW A BIG UPSET AND SO MUCH MORE
A former U. S. Senator from Texas, William Blakley, once said this about his state: “Texas is neither southern nor western. Texas is Texas.”
He couldn’t have been more correct. For a 69-year-old woman born and raised in Virginia, visiting Texas is a trip to a whole ‘nother world.
I have been to Texas three times in my life: Once when my mother took me to the Neiman Marcus spa in Arlington; several years ago, I attended the University of Texas and Baylor football game with my husband Granville and friends, then spending a few days on their ranch in San Angelo. And we just returned from a visit where we saw the Texas Oklahoma game and went back down to T Thornton’s ranch with T and his girlfriend Karen Jellison.
Even the American Airlines flight down to Dallas was a little different. A rumor was going around there was a Dallas Cowboy player on board. I mustered the nerve to ask the young man if he indeed played for the Cowboys and he said, “No.” Later the stewardess apologized, saying their flights usually had plenty of Cowboys.
(I was disappointed. The only time I have travelled with celebrities is the time I got on a flight and the entire group of “Kiss” was on board, sans make-up of course.)
The game between Texas and Oklahoma, called The Red River Rivalry, dates from 1900 and is incredibly fierce and played in The Cotton Bowl in Arlington. The match-up is usually at the same time as the Texas State Fair so when we left the stadium, we were surrounded by a few thousand people, statues of a giant cowboy and an armadillo, a shimmering Ferris wheel in the distance, and a man yelling on a corner that we all needed to be careful about the devil.
The game started at 2:30 and we were joined by a crowd of about 92,000, a near sell-out, and we realized our friend T had accidentally bought tickets in the Sooners’ section; we knew something was up when we noticed the seats were covered in red pompoms. (The Longhorns’ colors are orange and white.) No matter. The seats were great and we were surrounded by lots of Texas fans.
Ninety-eight percent of the people who walked into the stadium knew Texas was going to win because they were ranked #1 in the country. They had the great quarterback Arch Manning and other stellar players, and the Sooners fans sitting in front of me said they had a terrible team and quarterback.
But all of us were wrong. There was an interception, a fumble, and even though the Longhorns led at the half, things finally fell apart. With two minutes to go, Texas had the chance to win with a field goal and lo and behold, the kicker, normally excellent, missed. So, with three seconds on the clock, the Sooners’ kicker made his goal, and the unranked Sooners won, 27-24. The stadium exploded.
People squirted plastic bottles of water in the air and threw empty bottles, and the announcer said if fans stormed the field, there would be a fine of $500,000 and, if they threw trash on the field, they would be fined $250,000.
On a sidenote, we were shocked at how rude the Sooners were. Bad language. Stood up the whole time so we couldn’t see well.
T’s girlfriend, Karen, was kicked by an excited fan so hard in her back she bruised. The fans booed the players, the band, and when Gov. Abbott came out onto the field in his wheelchair — he was injured years ago when a tree fell on him while jogging — they booed him. They also booed actor Matthew McConaughey when he walked out. (McConaughey went to Texas and now teaches film classes there.)
I have come to realize bad behavior at sports matches is endemic and now part of our culture.
The next day we drove to West Texas with T and Karen to their ranch. I sat in the back of the car and admired the scrubby hardscrabbled vistas, flat with the occasional hill, all in the middle of a bad drought.
Highlights of our visit were we visited Conrad Hilton’s first hotel in Cisco, where he had planned to buy a bank and changed his mind and bought the Mobley Hotel instead. Hilton later built an empire of 242 hotels here and abroad, and the Mobley is now a museum and community center. Then we went to Ft. Concho, built in 1867, whose purpose was to protect the local settlers. Another day we visited San Angelo State Park, 7,677 acres, and although we didn’t see any Longhorn cattle, we did see dozens of bison, resting in the sunlight in the distance on the side of a clay-colored hill.
I have known T for years because he was married to my late Chatham Hall classmate, Pam, who died a few years ago from cancer. She was like a sister to me, and T and Karen were kind enough to take me to her grave so I could have a moment of quiet reflection.
T is a talented musician who in 1988 founded “The Old Hat Band,” which plays classic country as well as original songs. He plays the guitar, harmonica, writes music, and sings and has had quite a career, performing with everyone from Willie Nelson to Rusty Wier. The band also hosts country music cruises and Granville and I have been on two to Mexico and the Caribbean; next summer we will go to Alaska with the band and dozens of wonderful Texans.
One night T and Karen hosted a 70th birthday party for Granville at a pizzeria on a lake and we got to catch up with members of the band and fellow cruisers.
T raises beardless wheat, cattle, and has llamas on his ranch. He used to raise goats, however, this ended when coyotes slaughtered 100 of his baby goats over a three-month period. He used drones and night scopes to kill some of the coyotes.
One day we drove around the ranch and fed the cattle and llamas; it’s the only time in my life I have been stared down by a bull, so I stayed near the pickup truck. As we toured the ranch, I studied the stark yet handsome terrain, gazing at trees with names like Catclaw and Hackberry and plants like Blue Thistle and Yucca.
Granville and I stayed in an old stone ranch house on the property. The day we left, two cows eyed us over the fence and two pet goats greeted us in the driveway as we packed the car. One of the goats jumped on the hood, danced around, then tried to get in the back seat.
Guess he wanted to visit Virginia.
